AASHTO A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highway

AASHTO A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highway

A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highways 3rd Edition.
This manual provide a valuable resource for people who analyze the benefits and costs of highway projects. These analysts have the difficult and often cumbersome responsibility of performing complex benefit-cost calculations and presenting the results to decision-makers, the media, and the public.

It has been the practice of AASHTO to publish materials to support transportation planners in state, regional, and local governments who evaluate highway investments. This AASHTO A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highway is the merger of two, related research efforts that should simplify the efforts of these planners.

This AASHTO A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highway document up dates and expand s the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) User Benefit Analysis for Highways, also known as the Red Book . This AASHTO A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highway publication helps state and local transportation planning authorities e valuate the economic benef its of highway improvements . This update incorporates improvements in user benef it calculation methods and , for the f irst time, provides g uidance for evaluating important non-user impacts of highways . Previous editions of the Red Book prov ided guidance regarding user benef it measurement only.

Preface: Why Use This Manual AASHTO A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highway?
Transportation plan ners and policy makers are charged with the responsibility of identifying and selecting the projects that deserve implementation. Often, there are competing project designs toserve the same purpose.

The project selection process is complicated further, in most cases , by limited budgets and a host of candidate projects that might benef it the community. In these situations , analytic tools are needed to e valuate the relative merits of each cand idate proj ec t and ultimately provide a mean s for allocating resources to that set of projects that will maximize the total b enefits .

The purpose of this AASHTO A Manual of User Benefit Analysis for Highway is to assist in this process by providing the tools necessary to evaluate the costs and benef its related to transportation improvement projects